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GO BACK TO YOUR UNDERBELLY WRITING, ANDREW!
Andrew Rule is best known as the co-author with John Silvester of “Underbelly”, the book which methodically chronicled the Victorian gangland wars which gripped the morbid fascinations of Melbournians and Australian in the early part of this century and eventually morphed into the acclaimed first television series with the same title.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRM3PB87RIw
As crime writers and reporters Ruler and Silvester take a lot of beating. They had “canaries” in all the right places and on both sides of the fence – the Police and the underworld. They were father and mother confessor to many an underworld low life, particularly informers who like to dob in their competitors or opponents, often to gain a tactical advantage.
Fast forward to 2012, and there have been many game changers. The old style crooks are either in an underworld heaven or hell, depending on who pulled the trigger on them or which father or mother confessor they sought forgiveness from. Ditto the old style cops, who made it a point to trade information with their favoured media sleuths. Times have changed dramatically.
Ever since the race fixing scandals were broken by a collaboration between the acclaimed ABC investigative Four Corners program and the Fairfax media’s Age newspaper investigative team of Nick McKenzie and Richard Baker, News Limited’s Melbourne flagship title the Herald Sun has gone into a frenzied overdrive to catch up and claw back ground in breaking the headlines which Fairfax media and the Age, in particular, has continued to outscoop them. They own this story.
For the Herald Sun, which has assumed the mantle of the undisputed racing print title in Victoria it has been an unmitigated embarrassment. Their own reporters – racing and crime- have failed to pick up on the scent of a major racing story. And to make matters worse, a story which has continued to give the Age and Fairfax media, meaty. new scoops and front page leads, and from what we are told, will continue to do so. The soap opera has many more episodes to run.
So the editorial boffins at the Herald Sun, in their desperation to put an end to being left behind in the barrier stalls on the scandals have thrown in one of their real “heavy hitters” – Andrew Rule, now an Associate Editor on the case. But sadly for the Herald Sun, Andrew Rule has failed to deliver the chocolates.
The perfect example was last weekend’s Sunday Herald Sun, readers were greeted with the dramatic front page headline “Racing’s Dirty Secret” with the equally dramatic graphic of a liquid filled syringe. It got worse. A full three page supplement titled “Racing’s Dark Underbelly” with more graphics and equally sensational headlines revived days of the Murdoch and News Limited’s famous flagship “News of the World. Tabloid journalism at its best or worst, depending on whether you were in News Limited’s payroll.
Sorry, Andrew, but as a front page story and three page supplement, it just didn’t cut the mustard. Except for the names of two deceased trotting identities and the harness racing scandals they were involved in well over two decades ago, there were no names mentioned. It was a series of quotes from so called “prominent racing identities” and racehorse trainers – all under that well known cloak of anonymity. And the allegations were not surprisingly unsubstantiated alluding to trainers enjoying sustained success, and others dramatically turning the form around of horses which previously struggled to win races at the weakest race meetings like non-tabs, Saturday country race meetings at remote venues and even picnic meetings.
To be fair to “the ruler”, we’ve heard this talk for decades. Whenever a trainer or a stable has a sustained or sudden run of success, the general explanation is that “they must be on to something”. And ironically and indeed tellingly, the whingers and whiners among the training ranks are generally those who have enjoyed the same sustained run of success, but inexplicably have descended down the ladder. Put differently, they might need a new feng shui man because their luck has run out. Or perhaps they have lost their mojo. Or just maybe, they must no longer be “on to something”. Get the drift?
Back to “the ruler” and his very small gaggle of anonymous trainers and their unsubstantiated allegations, we think we know the identity of one of the more “prominent” Melbourne trainers quoted. He has been having an embarrassingly lean trot for some time, having expanded his existing training operation at a substantial cost with very little in the way of financial returns or winners. He ended a strong friendship with another leading Melbourne trainer extremely acrimoniously, and has taken every opportunity to run down his former best mate to all and sundry. Where his former best mate shuns the limelight as much as possible and is a “real” horseman, this guy, who we will refer to as the “dobber” craves attention and is the archetypal “jealous guy”, that John Lennon immortalized in the song of the same title.
What “the ruler” does not understand and the “prominent” racing identities and trainers conveniently put to a side, is that in both the premier racing states – NSW and Victoria, stewards conduct drug testing of horses in their tens of thousands each year. And in both States they conduct random stable visits and raid stables regularly. The inconvenient truth for some of these trainers, who in reality could well be “reformed cheats”, is that the strike rate of positive drug tests is so low that they are the sorts of bragging rights which many Olympic sports could give their left and right testicles for, to be able to counter the widespread perception and reality that the athletes participating in these sports are riddled with performance enhancing drugs in their system while competing.
But it is very different in racing, isn’t it? Let’s forget the fact that Ray Murrihy and Terry Bailey have now got at their disposal up to date tests for some of the most sinister performance drugs that can be used in horses. Yes, and conveniently forget that there is now, and has been for some time, tests for EPO and its prime derivative. Forget that samples are frozen and can be re-tested and severe retrospective penalties handed down. Forget another inconvenient truth that many of the drug positives are to therapeutics. Yes, everyday fucking therapeutics that enable the average person to keep working and functioning. And please, let’s also forget that there has only been ONE positive to EPO, the substance that does the head in of every “prominent racing identity” and whingeing trainers.
Does it ever occur to some of these “pure as the driven snow” trainers and racing identities that maybe, just maybe, their rivals are actually better trainers? That they use technology and modern training methods better than others who are still trapped in a time warp? That they get “into the heads and minds “ of their horses as well as into their stomachs? That they out-psych their horses and get them to perform at levels better than previously. Think of footballers changing clubs, athletes using different training regimes. Think of the successful chefs who can create the most amazing dishes using the same ingredients used by others but with vastly different results.
No. It is much more convenient and headline grabbing to by-pass the facts and quote under the cloak of anonymity. After all, why let the facts get in the way of a good story?
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OLIVER’S WOES GO MUCH DEEPER INTO THE JOCKEY RANKS
While next Tuesday is judgment day for Damien Oliver, who is expected to receive a severe penalty for his illegal bet on Miss Octopussy, sadly for racing and for Racing Victoria, the dominoes are about to fall one by one in the race fixing and illegal betting by jockeys scandals which has consumed the attention of both racing and non-racing folk alike. The do-gooders both inside and outside racing seem to have fallen out of just about every closet in Melbourne.
It was the topic du jour while we were in Melbourne during the spring racing carnival, with just about every racing person suddenly recalling their own particular episode of dodgy rides and knowledge of illegal betting. It would BE easy and far more preferable to dismiss these allegations are nothing more than exaggerated rumour and mischievous, but this is really serious mum!!
It is numbing to think that the sort of betting scandals and race fixing could actually have been going on for some years – not months or weeks or as an isolated old fashioned “one go” type scenario. And with jockeys being the “pint sized wascals” that they are, and with not the greatest individuals of collective IQs on this earth, they most certainly needed a “godfather” type figure with some degree of organizational skills to make sure any scams or rorts go to plan. And this where the whole sorry saga gets even murkier and you start dealing with serious gangland and underworld people, who are enforcers in the true sense of the word.
If, as is expected, names are named at Oliver’s inquiry next Tuesday, it will be really interesting as to who is the third party is. More importantly, is there a fourth and fifth party? And which party has become the whistleblower? From what is doing the rounds among those who are “in the know” in Melbourne, the whistleblower could be a well known big punter and respected form analyst who could have inadvertently “outed” other jockeys that were using him as a conduit in their betting activities. There could also be a much bigger and more sinister individual involved who has got “form” in the harness racing industry for all sorts of rorts involving the supply of performance enhancing drugs and who is understood to have raced horses with a group of his mates including a certain not very successful racehorse trainer.
When the dominoes start to fall among the jockeys, there is little doubt that the riding ranks in Melbourne will be decimated at the top level and will make Victoria an attractive option for jockeys from other states and overseas to consider relocation.
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WHAT WAS THE PLODDER DOING IN HONG KONG?
We thought we were being had when we learned that “the plodder”, Racing Victoria’s Chief Executive elect, Bernard Saundry was in Hong Kong last weekend, during the final day of the Spring Racing Carnival and right in the middle of the biggest scandals to hit Victorian racing. If this is the sort of timing that “the plodder” is displaying, the grey skies over Racing Victoria are getting darker by the hour.
So why was he there in the first place? To learn first hand what makes the Hong Kong Jockey Club tick and how far ahead of Australia they are in just about everything they do? If that was the reason for sending him there, we then should applaud Racing Victoria. Lets face it, if you are ready to go out on to the road for your driving licence with “P” plates on, you might as well enrol with the best driving school.
Never mind the memorable quote from Racing Victoria Chairman Michael Duffy, when announcing “the plodder’s” appointment that they had literally scoured the world for their new CEO and found the best person for the job in their own backyard! Must make those parochial Victorians so proud to discover a gold nugget in the very place they cherish so dearly – their own backyard. Puzzling isn’t it that such an outstanding choice of appointment should be dispatched to Hong Kong to get a grip on how well they do things?
“The Plodder”, to our knowledge, has been on the payroll of Racing Victoria for a decade, at the very least, and one would have surmised, as part of his senior executive role, would have been visited the Jockey Club at least once, if not more, on official business. Still, better late than never. But we can only imagine the prolonged laughter emanating out of the executive suites of Racing NSW’ offices in Druitt Street. Our mates in the upper echelons of the racing governing body in Australia’s premier city, must think it is an encore performance of Monty Python’s Flying Circus.
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